With some 40 days left for the start of summer olympics, countries are now in the process of selecting the athletes who will represent them in each discipline.
Although Euro 2008 is taking the spot light in all newspaper headlines, the past weeks and few weeks to come have had and will have exciting meets in various sports.
Yesterday Japan concluded their 4 day track and field national championships/ olympic trials. I'd consider track the unofficial national sport of Japan, and although fierce competition, it was pretty obvious who would win which races, but like any event, there were many surprises. You can find detailed news at www.japanrunningnews.blogspot.com.
I guess of the runners going those who have a realistic chance of winning a medal are Murofushi, Noguchi Mizuki, perhaps one of the male marathoners depending on both their and the competition's performance, and with a PB race Shibui Yoko.
Another country having their track and field olympic trials is the USA. Having as main headline Gay's 9.68 victory on the 100 meters. Due to wind aid the time was not considered as a new world record, but his 9.77 in the semi's made him the fastest man the USA has ever had. Pretty impressive, and with Bolt having ran a 9.72 this year (not confirmed as runner in Beijing) and Powell with a PB of 9.74, the XXIX olympic promise to be be the fastest ever.
In other pre-olympic races Liu Xiang's 110 meter hurdles 4 year world record was broken by Cuban Robles making this an interesting event as well for the Olympics.
40 days left and as the day comes closer Beijing might be witness of new world records, shoulder to shoulder races and many surprises. Hopefully all the bad news surrounding China's recent scandals will not ruin what promises to be a great summer event.
* Personally looking forward to watch many swimming world records broken and perhaps see Michael Phelps win 8 golden medals in a single olympic.
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